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shadowkatTook a nice long walk around 12:30 pm to the esplanade in Brooklyn - which overlooks the Manhattan skyline, the Brooklyn Bridge and the Statue of Liberty. Possibly amongst the best views in the city. Read for a bit, although have to admit to being a stuck in my latest novel reading attempt. Was plowing through Stephen King's The Stand until about page 259, where out of the blue the writer decides to introduce a bunch of new characters. Not very nice or interesting characters. And a lot of gory violence. Now, I'm just bored and a bit aggravated. We'll see if I make it through this book. I may end up scanning half of it. Also read a little of this Book Forum magazine that I picked up at RocketShip along with the latest Buffy comic. Not bad. A bit on the pretentious side, but all book review magazines are, with the possible exception of Publisher's Weekly.
Also, watched Intervention and Tough Love this morning, after seeing The Body and Forever the night before. [For some bizarre reason I keep wanting to call "Tough Love" - "Touched". Makes no sense. Since Intervention and Tough Love actually mean the same thing or are often used interchangably.]
Noticed the following: 1)There's a huge mother/father arc in this season - more so than in any season since maybe Season 3. But here it is about losing the father and mother, about moving past them and becoming a parent yourself. A responsible adult. Learning how to care for someone - but not in a romantic sort of way. 2) An at times brutal and at other times merely snarky critique of the gothic romance tropes that appear in books such as the Twilight books, Daphne Du Maurier's fiction, Bronte's, Anne Rice, Charlian Harris, LK Hamilton, and a lot of fanfiction. 3) There's an additional theme about caring about someone other than yourself - about being selfless. And whether humans are truly capable of this type of love. 4) Both paternal and maternal world orders have flaws. Neither order nor chaos works.
1. The Body and Forever - Losing a parent is forever, however they may go.
Mothers and Fathers.
The Body describes what it is like to lose one's mother in graphic emotional detail. There are men in this episode, but they are rendered useless, interfering, or harmful. The vampire at the end - a gaunt almost emancipated corspe represents our battle with death, the fear of it, the need to fight it. But the focus, the people with the most dialogue, the dialogue that is the most moving - are women. Xander has a great bit that made me burst out laughing - but it also showed how ineffectual he is. He can't do anything. Death, real death, the type that happens due to illness or just old age - is not something we can necessarily fight. Buffy's Mom ultimately loses her fight against the tumor. The fact that she lost it just when she'd begun dating someone she actually liked ...Buffy notes right before she finds her mom's body, "some guys do get it right".
Even though we spend most of this episode seeing Joyce, remembering Joyce, handling the death of Joyce - and seeing how Buffy - shell-shocked is being forced kicking and screaming into Joyce's role, in the background there's the father...who seems to be hovering unseen.
The last time we saw Hank Summers was in "When She Was Bad". We haven't seen him since. He's been referred to several times - in What's My Line, Helpless, I Will Always Remember You, Something Blue (which happens right after I Will Always Remember You), and No Place Like Home. The next time he's mentioned is here and in Forever. Giles takes on his role at times, but reluctantly. Angel takes it on - but in such a way, that well, let's just say the curse is used as a metaphor for multiple things and leave it at that, for now. Hank is a ghost, who Buffy misses but can't quite admit to missing.
This brings me to...
Forever...if The Body referes to Joyce, Forever may well refer to the absense of Hank, who is alive but may as well, from Buffy's pov, be dead. When someone is gone, they are gone. And in some respects Hank's abandonment of his family is as painful if not more so than Joyce's death. Joyce did not willingly leave, Hank did.
In Forever - Buffy chooses the casket. She sets up the funeral. With Giles help. And she pushes her emotions to one side. What's interesting about the Body and Forever is who directs and writes them. Whedon directed and wrote The Body (which focuses on losing a mother), while Marti wrote and directed Forever (which focuses on the father's role). They are bookends and should be watched together. Since they comment on each other. Much as Crush and I Was Made To Love You do. One is about losing your mother. The other is handling the absent father, who should be supporting you or rather you should be supporting him - but he's gone. Absent.
In Marti's episode, Forever, there's an oddly placed scene that does not quite fit with the rest of the episode's tone or for that matter with the season or Angel's series. It's a cross-over and involves Angel. The way it is shot and written is almost dreamlike. For a moment, you wonder if it is real or something Buffy is imagining. In this portion - Buffy reverts to her childish/adolescent self. It's not the only time she does. There's another point, that she does this - towards the end. She's sitting against Angel, resting against him and he is "comforting" her. His words are fatherly and his tone paternal. She snuggles against him. When he asks how long she needs him to stay, that he can stay as long as he is needed...she provides the title of the episode within her response .."Is Forever good? How about Forever?" Then chokes and says, "I'm sorry, I'm seriously needy right now."
Before this scene takes place - Buffy mentions Hank Summers twice. Once when the phone is ringing and she asks Giles to take it, unless of course it is her father. The second time occurs later, around the time of the funeral, when she says - no he hasn't called once.
In the series itself - there are a few crucial moments in which Hank and Angel are juxtaposed - these are What's My Line - where Angel takes Buffy ice skating just as her father did. The Ice Capades we're told in S1 and S3 are shared with Buffy and her Dad.
In Helpless - Buffy's father abandons her, she turns to Angel, then to Giles.
And in I Will Always Remember You - Buffy has gone to LA to visit her father and stops to see Angel on the way. It ends miserably and she's in pain. We do not hear about Hank or Buffy visiting Hank after that.
Buffy's relationship with Angel is in some ways very paternalistic in tone. He takes care of her. Outside of maybe two times, Angel is rarely a damsel. He's rarely beaten to a pulp. He does get ill with an arrow via Faith, but Buffy saves him, by making him drink from her - from mother's milk, much as he drank from Darla to become a vampire. His relationship with Buffy is akin to her's to him - comfort. When she is with Angel, she reverts back to the teenager she was back then. She relives her teen years. Much as an adult make find themselves reverting back to childhood when they visit their parents house. She can't be a responsible adult with Angel. She abdicates to him, lets him take over.
When they kiss...the spell is broken, and she says no, I guess Forever is out. Angel responds I can stay a few minutes longer before daylight breaks. No one else sees Angel and as far as we know, no one else ever knows it happened. It's a moment. And it seems unnecessary. Except as a reminder of the absent Hank, a reminder of Buffy's own father issues, and a reminder of why she can't be with Angel.
If you were watching Angel the Series at the same time - Angel had just slept with Darla, gone nasty - killing a bunch of lawyers and setting Dru and Darla on fire, as well as leaving his friends in the lurch, only to hit rock bottom. Each time Angel hits rock bottom, he goes to a woman for comfort, not forgiveness, comfort. Here it is Darla, then Kate, then Buffy. But it's not about forgiveness or approval. It's about comfort. Taking it and giving it. Feeling better about himself. Buffy gives that to him. But, but...Angel knows that Buffy doesn't know who he is. She sees what he shows her and he hasn't shown her much outside of that. She doesn't know what is inside Angel. It plagues her and it is partly why they can't be together.
I don't find this sequeance romantic. If anything it is mildly disturbing. There's an incestuous undertone, that I think may be deliberate. Also it appears to be a critique of
romantic literature - demonstrating, the dark handsome myterious guy, the first love, shows up, comforts you for a moment, but when he was really needed he's gone. He stays only long enough to hold her after the funeral, but he is gone before Buffy returns to Dawn and discovers Dawn doing the spell, before Glory attacks in the next episode, or the school threatens to take Dawn away from Buffy. An apparition. Not real. Any more than the love is real. It's romantic make-believe. The young girl's fantasy. We kiss. We pull apart. He wanders off into the darkness. Beautiful but elusive.
The other bit in Forever is Spike, which isn't the least bit romantic. It's clear in this episode that Buffy and her friends do not understand what motivates Spike. The writers have told us, if we were paying attention, way back in Fool for Love. William - the poet, lies at the heart of Spike. The man who wants to save his mother but can't. Who wants to take care of and be seen by Cecily but can't. But the man, William, has to a degree been suppressed. Spike goes to the Summer's house to drop off a bunch of flowers. There's no note. The flowers look like they've been picked. Xander leaps to the conclusion that Spike is seeking favors from Buffy, but Spike makes it clear to Xander this is not the case. I'm not sure why he cares what Xander or Willow think. But he does. He actually defends himself and says :"I liked the lady. She treated me nice. Always had a good cuppa for me. Never treated me like a freak. What you don't understand is she was the only one of you lot I could stand!"
Why does Spike fall for Buffy? Perhaps because he identifies with Buffy on some level. Like Buffy - Spike was the sole caretaker of a sick mother. With no father figure in evidence. And like Buffy, he loses his mother. "I have to get back to mother," he tells Dru. And later in Lies My Parents Told Me, we learn that's where they go, his intent is to make his mother like himself, to have her forever. (Which was what happened in The Vampire Lestate by Anne Rice, Lestate turned his ill mother into a vampire like himself and they wandered psuedo romantically about France for a brief bit, except here it goes awry and is not romantic). And in Forever, he decides to help Dawn bring Joyce back. Dawn assumes he's doing it to get in good with Buffy. But he makes a point of telling Dawn never to tell Buffy, indicating perhaps that he knows on some level it's a bad idea. Which makes his motivation somewhat confusing - is it really to aid Dawn or to aid himself? Perhaps on some level, Spike himself wants Joyce back for Spike. He misses Joyce. If she came back wrong - she could be his dark mother? It's clear from both Lover's Walk and Crush - that Spike got a long with Joyce. He even seemed to deal with her pretty well in Becoming. It's the difference between Spike and Angel - Spike and Rupert Giles spar and barely get along, Spike often jabs at Rupert, while Angel jabs at Joyce, never liked Joyce, when he becomes Angelus he literally threatens to kill her, and causes a rift between her and her daughter, albeit brief, yet Angel respects Rupert, as Angelus respects his knowledge enough to kidnap him for it and tortures him.
If Giles had died, I'm guessing Angel would have acted differently, as would have Spike.
Angel comforts Buffy. Spike sort of comforts Dawn, but differently. It's not comfort. It's more commisseration. Which may well be what happened at the end of Fool for Love with Buffy - comisseration. He like Tara, understands. And unlike Tara, but like Dawn, wants to change it. He wants Joyce back. He doesn't want her back completely wrong - so he helps Dawn find someone who can make sure she comes back okay, from Spike's pov.(Foreshadowing for S6, when they bring back Buffy and Spike leaps to the conclusion that she came back slightly wrong - explaining her sexual attraction to him, which she didn't act on before. That conclusion is somewhat explained by this episode and Lies My Parents Told Me. Forever is possibly also the reason Willow makes sure Spike, Giles, and Dawn have no clue what she is up to in Bargaining.)
Spike's relationship with Joyce and Dawn, which extends outside of Buffy, and may well have influenced his feelings towards Buffy - is what the others don't understand. It is outside of their experience. Why would Spike care about Joyce and Dawn if it weren't about wanting Buffy? They don't know as much about Spike as Spike knows about them. They only know what is in the Watcher Diaries, which of course is somewhat limited in scope. As Spike told Buffy in Fool for Love - it's not about the moves. The Diaries only really talk about the "moves". Not the motivation.
In Forever - Spike acts more like Dawn's father in some respects or big brother, than Buffy's father. A sort of inept father or caretaker to Buffy's slightly more adept mother/provider. He takes on a sort of caretaker/protector role here...albeit an inept one, continuing the theme of inept fathers in the series. While Angel on the other hand takes on the caretaker role with Buffy, albeit an inept one - since he kisses her and makes it impossible for her to lean on him for longer than a few minutes. Angel notably does not take on the role of spouse or boyfriend - so much as father figure in the episode. The kiss is taboo and they break apart. While Spike leaves flowers (which is what the Body started with, flowers left by a guy for Joyce that Buffy comments on) and attempts to bring the mother back for both girls ( a horrific idea). He acts in the role of inept/monster spouse or boyfriend. While Angel acts the role of inept/monster father.
Dawn's spell of course goes horribly wrong and is broken before we can find out how wrong. It's a creepy episode - and reminds me a great deal of that classic horror story The Monkey's Paw. Where a couple wish on a monkey's paw for their dead son to come back, after he's been torn asunder in a factory accident. What shows up at their door is not their son or it is a mangled version of their son. They use their last wish to get rid of it.
However, the spell in Forever is in many ways a similar spell to the one that Willow uses to bring back Buffy and that she attempts to use again to bring back Tara. Tara tells Willow and Dawn this not something you want to attempt. It's playing with the natural order of things. But Willow doesn't seem to get that. Willow is not a trained witch like Tara, she is not into the religion, she does not practice wicca or abide by the guidelines, she is a practicioner of magic which is not the same thing. She's a witch not a wiccan.
2. Intervention and Tough Love - sacrifice and vengeance...love's at it's best and worst.
Up until Intervention, the scooby gang or Willow, Xander, Giles, Anya, Tara, and Buffy have only really seen one side of Spike. The other side pops up at times, but they aren't sure what to make of it - and after Season 4 and the events of Yoko Factor and Out of My Mind, may have decided to take it with a grain of salt. They've decided much as they did with Angel, to their considerable chagrin - that what they see is what they get - ie, they are judging the book by its cover. Not a good idea. Angel - was the demon with the Angel's face. Angelus is merely the latin for the same name. They have no way of knowing that Angel is a but a puppet to fate - always seeking the approval of a higher authority, the father who dies at his own hand and still to this day manipulates his strings. He is not his own man. Spike, they cannot know, is a pavolian dog - seeking the approval of a mother, who died at his own hand. Switching coats and pushing a bell. The chip has over time brought out the man that resides alongside the demon. The man who informs the demon. Positive reinforcement has convinced him that if he helps Buffy - he is okay, if he hurts her - he feels pain. If he helps, she treats him like a man, if her hurts or makes unwanted advances - she treats him like a thing. If he is chivalrous and doesn't react to her sexually - she treats him with respect. And Spike wants to be loved, respected, needed. He craves human companionship. He craves female approval and adoration. It appears on the surface that he doesn't - but it is the opposite. Spike and Angel are not what they appear to be. No one in the series is.
This is the turning point in the series for Spike. After he gets captured, the actor changes how he is playing the role, it's a slight change, the makeup also changes. Spike looks different after this point. At least for a while. More unkept. Leaner. Hungrier. Strung out. And also subdued. Almost tentative. We see more and more of William bleeding through the cracks in his exterior, more and more of the nancy boy, the pratt, that he denies. It is in this episode that Buffy sees the man inside the monster.
In a scene with Xander...Spike tells Xander that he is not a monster. Xander befuddled by this odd statement. Replies: "Yes you are. Vampires are monsters. They make monster movies about them." Spike shrugs, "well you got me there." It's a funny scene but speaks volumes about the characters and how they perceive things. Spike doesn't think of himself as a monster any more. He wants to be treated like a man. Xander only sees the monster - the man from Xander's pov is a mirage. But Xander is admittedly confused. Also, I think Xander on some level identifies with Spike, which serves to confuse him further. Buffy tells Spike the truth when she visits him as the Bufbot and states in response to his question - "they repaired you?" She says - "They got confused." They are confused - by his actions. And she's visiting him in the guise of the toy, to get him to tell her the truth, knowing full well he wouldn't otherwise. (She's right, he probably wouldn't have. She'd have gotten bravado instead.)
In Intervention - Espenson pokes fun at gothic romance tropes or the bad-boy - Spike's programing of the Buffybot is right out of one of these novels or possibly a fanfic. It's a romantic fantasy. Complete with the bad dialogue. Not quite what one might expect. It's funny, yet also disturbing. Buffbot's put him at the center of her universe. But she doesn't appear to love him in his fantasy, so much as merely desire him and want him. She says she "loves" his sinister attraction. Spike has decided that the reason Buffy and Angel hit it off and not Buffy and Riley is because Angel is a monster and she liked the sinister monster. Remember Spike knows Angel better than Buffy does. He knew Angel for 20 years as Angelus, and for quite a bit longer as Angel. He was around when Angel got cursed and couldn't tell there was a difference. He knew Angel and Darla together. Buffy barely saw them together. As he states later in Beneath You - "Angel hid it well... he should have told me." From Spike's pov - Buffy must have a yen for vampires and monsters, otherwise why would she be with Angel? He does not know how Buffy saw or perceived Angel - he doesn't understand that. If she told him? He'd probably laugh and tell her she was a fool. Actually he has more or less. In Lover's Walk. So in Spike's fantasy - she wants him, desires him because he's dark and sinister. It never occurs to him that she'd fancy the man. Her reaction in Intervention takes him by surprise.
The critique is of romantic gothic fic - where the woman wants the bad boy, the demon and not the kind man. Demonstrating how silly this is, how unreal. While I'm tempted to say the buffbot is sexist. It really is not. If you look at the programming - sure she's programmed to want sex with him, but he pleasures her as well. We see him going down on her at one point (performing oral sex) then later she returns the favor. Also she tells Buffy - "yes, he's evil, but you should see him naked, I mean really". She's not like April. She isn't just about her boyfriend. Nor has she made her boyfriend perfect, he's evil - she tells people. He's given her a job, a calling, friends, family, desires outside of him. In the battle sequence, the Buffbot looks at Spike wounded in the elevator - goes to save him, then shifts course and is broken, risking her life to save Giles. In her memory banks - she's told how to feel about each of Buffy's friends. That's why they can't tell she's a robot. She looks at Anya and thinks, loves money, ex-demon, dates Xander. And Willow - is gay from 1999-onwards, witch, best friend, good at computers. It's detailed information that Spike provided and asked to be programmed into her. Spike clearly remembers it and pays attention, even if Warren didn't - he seems to have forgotten all of it by S6. So what Spike creates is more than a girlfriend, more than a sexbot, he creates a pleasant Buffy that will be with him and love him...but is also a slayer, slays vampires, and demons, and cares about her friends. He wants Buffy. Since he can't have her - he attempts to create a substitute. But the substitute he creates is not subservient. Spike doesn't create a slave or sexbot, he creates an equal or tries to. He creates a romantic fantasy right out of Harelquin Novel or Gothic paranormal romance.
Spike does not act predictably with Glory. Tortured for hours, possibly more than a day. Beaten, thrashed. Barely escapes with his life. Yet doesn't tell her a thing. It shocks Buffy and she kisses him. It is the first time that she truly kisses him under her own willpower. And it takes him by surprise. It's a counter to his romantic fantasy. Which she tells him is not real. When they actually engage in it in S6, she repeats this sentiment endlessly - this is not real. And she's right. It's not. Any more than her romance with Angel was real. What he did for her and Dawn, that was real.
In her vision quest - she revisits the desert landscape and the first slayer that she'd visited in an earlier dream in Restless. Except this time the first slayer speaks. She tells Buffy that she is full of love, so bright it is blinding, and she mustn't turn away from it, the pain, or stop forgiving, forgive - give, leads you to your gift - death is your gift. Which is a repeat of what Spike and Dracula told her. Spike said "death is your gift, you make it day after day with your hands". What he is talking about is mortality for vampires - who live forever and can't die. The gift of final release. Which part of Spike may well crave. The first slayer is also talking about it, about the balance. You must die to live. As other's have stated, in S5, Buffy kills herself to save herself. Dawn is her mortal self, the part of her filled with life and love.
At the end of Intervention - she follows the first slayers advice, she forgives Spike with a kiss and brings him into her group. By doing so, she changes the course of both his and her own destiny. As well as everyone else's. Because of her actions towards Spike - he eventually gets a soul, dies to live so to speak. She could have chosen to dust him. He may well have welcomed it. But she doesn't. She chooses to forgive him, to see the man inside not just the demon, and to let the man in.
This leads to Tough Love. Where the central focus is on Willow and Tara, as well as on Giles, Dawn, Buffy. Giles proves in this episode to be somewhat helpful - but as a torturer and interrogator. Giles, I've begun to realize during my rewatch is inept. He's always being knocked unconscious in the first four seasons. Cordy even makes the comment - it's a wonder you don't have brain damage by now. It might be Anya. Not sure which. In the fifth season - he doesn't do much - except come up with advice that more often than not isn't correct and causes harm. He enables Willow's dark magic - by keeping books on the topic accessible. Both Willow and Dawn are able to find them. The Watcher's Council warns him to hide the books, but he ignores them. Anya warns him not to sell certain items, but he purchases them anyway - enabling Willow and Glory at different points. And here, he tortures someone - no wonder Willow thinks it is a good idea. When Buffy asks Giles for help with Dawn or support, he gives her the wrong advice - tells her to put her foot down, refuses to help, and says she must do it alone. (Admitting that when he tried to discipline her, she just ignored him - because he never followed up on it. Something Joyce understandably calls him on. In fact Joyce rightfully tells Giles that she blames him for Buffy taking off at the end of S2, Joyce is right - it is partly Giles' fault.). I think this is intentional. I think we are supposed to see Giles as ineffective. It's too consistent and obvious for it be anything else. Another critique of the paternal world-view. Giles' guidance, if there's any, is not to kill everything and to understand people make horrible mistakes and forgive them. But even that advice gets cloudy at times.
Tough Love in some respects reminds me of Seeing Red and Passion, except it is more disturbing and creepier. It packs more of a wallop - because, Glory does it in broad daylight, with people around. And what she does to Tara is as Tara states, a fate worse than death. "A brain-sucker? At least vampires just kill you." And the place she puts Tara is the place Tara ran away from. The dirty small box in which Glory herself has been exiled to and barely escapes from time to time - where she feels dirty, and it's dark and small things are pinching and crawling inside her. Willow gets there - but just in time to see Glory do it and to see Glory leave. Too late to save Tara. And it happens after their fight. An arguement that struck a chord in me - and no not the lesbian bit - although that actually is played quite well, but the bit about not having these experiences, not being able to identify and feeling less than because of it. "I haven't had a parent die, I don't know what it's like ..." Willow's fears and insecurities scream out during this scene. And Willow reacts to Tara's injury exactly as Tara feared she might. This is the Willow that scares Tara. The Willow that scared OZ as well. The Willow who goes after magic to handle and/or hide her own inadequacies, her jealousy of Buffy - which also comes out in this episode. "You could do it!" She shouts at Buffy. "Why can't I?" Willow has been working hard since roughly Season 1 to become more like Buffy, her best friend. She has envied Buffy since she met her, and it is that envy that is eating away at Willow. It's an odd envy, because Buffy in a way probably envied Willow - envied that Willow did not have this enormous calling. Could be the normal girl.
And like Giles in Passion - Willow follows her mentor's lead, and darts after Glory and barely injures her, almost gets herself killed - like Giles did in Passion when he went after Angelus. Spike and Dawn manage to convince Buffy that Willow will do it, reminding her that it is what she'd do under similar circumstances. And like with Giles, Buffy rushes to the rescue. Except...
This final grab at black magic from Giles's shop - is probably the reason Willow begins to lose control later. Before this point, Willow needed Tara to do the complex spells still. Sure she was beyond Tara, but to do them took a lot out of her. Now, she can enter people's heads, and hold Glory in stasis with little effort. Her eyes turn pitch black when she uses this type of magic.
She has crossed a line. The magic she uses are curses, they twist things. And it is the third time she's accessed it. The first was in Becoming, the second...Something Blue - when D'Hoffryn wanted to make her a vengeance demon, and the third now - each spell is a vengeance spell. Each comes from vengeance, and each warps Willow a bit more than the last. Willow and Spike's arc's began more or less in Becoming - because of Angel and Buffy's actions, Spike moved in a direction counter to evil and Willow moved in a direction towards it. Spike was/is Angel/Angelus' best friend, his brother, and Willow was/is Buffy's best friend.
Giles later states in Flooded after she did the Bargaining Spell that Willow opened a door she might not be able to close when she brought Buffy back. But what Giles has failed to see is they are long long past that point already - she opened that door way back in S2, and has opened it at least twice since, the third time was the charm. After that point, all she needs is a nudge from Amy and when she gets more black magic, the magic begins to control her and the addiction storyline takes off. What a lot of people do not understand about substance abuse, mostly because we have a tendency to base our understanding of things on our own rather limited experience/perspective of them (a huge flaw in our reasoning by the way, we do not as much as we like to think it live in a one size fits all world) - is more often than not the substance in of itself is not evil. There is nothing wrong with alcohol for example - in some people it can be helpful, same with marijuana or caffeine, while in others it is poison. Sure some substances are poison no matter what - ie. tobacco and nicotine. But most aren't. The abuse happens when the person begins to let the substance control them. They crave it. It takes them over. Willow after Tough Love, lets the magic take over. It becomes who she is. She doesn't like herself without the magic. She has begun to define herself with it. She choses to be the darkwitch over the nerdy geek.
The magic is also to a degree a metaphor for female power - for earth. Like guns or swords or the fist represent male power. The magic uncontrolled is chaotic, destructive, devouring, swallows you whole. The negative aspect of the mother. Controlled - it is kind, comforting, beautiful, and filled with love. We see it with Glory and Ben - healer/monster. Chaos/Order. But chaos isn't always bad and order isn't always good. Tara's magic is shown to be beautiful - Willow's tempered by Tara's is equally beautiful. Without Tara, Willow loses control and becomes vengeful, greedy, devouring. Tara = good mother, Willow =negative mother.
The duality is evident. And it is a theme established early on - in The Replacement, where Xander realizes that both Suave Xander and ButtMonkey Xander are Xander. Without both, Xander will die. As Spike programs the Buffbot in Intervention - Willow is many things, not just one. She's nerd willow and magic willow and gay willow and best friend willow... Tara sees that. Willow hasn't figured it out yet.
Also, watched Intervention and Tough Love this morning, after seeing The Body and Forever the night before. [For some bizarre reason I keep wanting to call "Tough Love" - "Touched". Makes no sense. Since Intervention and Tough Love actually mean the same thing or are often used interchangably.]
Noticed the following: 1)There's a huge mother/father arc in this season - more so than in any season since maybe Season 3. But here it is about losing the father and mother, about moving past them and becoming a parent yourself. A responsible adult. Learning how to care for someone - but not in a romantic sort of way. 2) An at times brutal and at other times merely snarky critique of the gothic romance tropes that appear in books such as the Twilight books, Daphne Du Maurier's fiction, Bronte's, Anne Rice, Charlian Harris, LK Hamilton, and a lot of fanfiction. 3) There's an additional theme about caring about someone other than yourself - about being selfless. And whether humans are truly capable of this type of love. 4) Both paternal and maternal world orders have flaws. Neither order nor chaos works.
1. The Body and Forever - Losing a parent is forever, however they may go.
Mothers and Fathers.
The Body describes what it is like to lose one's mother in graphic emotional detail. There are men in this episode, but they are rendered useless, interfering, or harmful. The vampire at the end - a gaunt almost emancipated corspe represents our battle with death, the fear of it, the need to fight it. But the focus, the people with the most dialogue, the dialogue that is the most moving - are women. Xander has a great bit that made me burst out laughing - but it also showed how ineffectual he is. He can't do anything. Death, real death, the type that happens due to illness or just old age - is not something we can necessarily fight. Buffy's Mom ultimately loses her fight against the tumor. The fact that she lost it just when she'd begun dating someone she actually liked ...Buffy notes right before she finds her mom's body, "some guys do get it right".
Even though we spend most of this episode seeing Joyce, remembering Joyce, handling the death of Joyce - and seeing how Buffy - shell-shocked is being forced kicking and screaming into Joyce's role, in the background there's the father...who seems to be hovering unseen.
The last time we saw Hank Summers was in "When She Was Bad". We haven't seen him since. He's been referred to several times - in What's My Line, Helpless, I Will Always Remember You, Something Blue (which happens right after I Will Always Remember You), and No Place Like Home. The next time he's mentioned is here and in Forever. Giles takes on his role at times, but reluctantly. Angel takes it on - but in such a way, that well, let's just say the curse is used as a metaphor for multiple things and leave it at that, for now. Hank is a ghost, who Buffy misses but can't quite admit to missing.
This brings me to...
Forever...if The Body referes to Joyce, Forever may well refer to the absense of Hank, who is alive but may as well, from Buffy's pov, be dead. When someone is gone, they are gone. And in some respects Hank's abandonment of his family is as painful if not more so than Joyce's death. Joyce did not willingly leave, Hank did.
In Forever - Buffy chooses the casket. She sets up the funeral. With Giles help. And she pushes her emotions to one side. What's interesting about the Body and Forever is who directs and writes them. Whedon directed and wrote The Body (which focuses on losing a mother), while Marti wrote and directed Forever (which focuses on the father's role). They are bookends and should be watched together. Since they comment on each other. Much as Crush and I Was Made To Love You do. One is about losing your mother. The other is handling the absent father, who should be supporting you or rather you should be supporting him - but he's gone. Absent.
In Marti's episode, Forever, there's an oddly placed scene that does not quite fit with the rest of the episode's tone or for that matter with the season or Angel's series. It's a cross-over and involves Angel. The way it is shot and written is almost dreamlike. For a moment, you wonder if it is real or something Buffy is imagining. In this portion - Buffy reverts to her childish/adolescent self. It's not the only time she does. There's another point, that she does this - towards the end. She's sitting against Angel, resting against him and he is "comforting" her. His words are fatherly and his tone paternal. She snuggles against him. When he asks how long she needs him to stay, that he can stay as long as he is needed...she provides the title of the episode within her response .."Is Forever good? How about Forever?" Then chokes and says, "I'm sorry, I'm seriously needy right now."
Before this scene takes place - Buffy mentions Hank Summers twice. Once when the phone is ringing and she asks Giles to take it, unless of course it is her father. The second time occurs later, around the time of the funeral, when she says - no he hasn't called once.
In the series itself - there are a few crucial moments in which Hank and Angel are juxtaposed - these are What's My Line - where Angel takes Buffy ice skating just as her father did. The Ice Capades we're told in S1 and S3 are shared with Buffy and her Dad.
In Helpless - Buffy's father abandons her, she turns to Angel, then to Giles.
And in I Will Always Remember You - Buffy has gone to LA to visit her father and stops to see Angel on the way. It ends miserably and she's in pain. We do not hear about Hank or Buffy visiting Hank after that.
Buffy's relationship with Angel is in some ways very paternalistic in tone. He takes care of her. Outside of maybe two times, Angel is rarely a damsel. He's rarely beaten to a pulp. He does get ill with an arrow via Faith, but Buffy saves him, by making him drink from her - from mother's milk, much as he drank from Darla to become a vampire. His relationship with Buffy is akin to her's to him - comfort. When she is with Angel, she reverts back to the teenager she was back then. She relives her teen years. Much as an adult make find themselves reverting back to childhood when they visit their parents house. She can't be a responsible adult with Angel. She abdicates to him, lets him take over.
When they kiss...the spell is broken, and she says no, I guess Forever is out. Angel responds I can stay a few minutes longer before daylight breaks. No one else sees Angel and as far as we know, no one else ever knows it happened. It's a moment. And it seems unnecessary. Except as a reminder of the absent Hank, a reminder of Buffy's own father issues, and a reminder of why she can't be with Angel.
If you were watching Angel the Series at the same time - Angel had just slept with Darla, gone nasty - killing a bunch of lawyers and setting Dru and Darla on fire, as well as leaving his friends in the lurch, only to hit rock bottom. Each time Angel hits rock bottom, he goes to a woman for comfort, not forgiveness, comfort. Here it is Darla, then Kate, then Buffy. But it's not about forgiveness or approval. It's about comfort. Taking it and giving it. Feeling better about himself. Buffy gives that to him. But, but...Angel knows that Buffy doesn't know who he is. She sees what he shows her and he hasn't shown her much outside of that. She doesn't know what is inside Angel. It plagues her and it is partly why they can't be together.
I don't find this sequeance romantic. If anything it is mildly disturbing. There's an incestuous undertone, that I think may be deliberate. Also it appears to be a critique of
romantic literature - demonstrating, the dark handsome myterious guy, the first love, shows up, comforts you for a moment, but when he was really needed he's gone. He stays only long enough to hold her after the funeral, but he is gone before Buffy returns to Dawn and discovers Dawn doing the spell, before Glory attacks in the next episode, or the school threatens to take Dawn away from Buffy. An apparition. Not real. Any more than the love is real. It's romantic make-believe. The young girl's fantasy. We kiss. We pull apart. He wanders off into the darkness. Beautiful but elusive.
The other bit in Forever is Spike, which isn't the least bit romantic. It's clear in this episode that Buffy and her friends do not understand what motivates Spike. The writers have told us, if we were paying attention, way back in Fool for Love. William - the poet, lies at the heart of Spike. The man who wants to save his mother but can't. Who wants to take care of and be seen by Cecily but can't. But the man, William, has to a degree been suppressed. Spike goes to the Summer's house to drop off a bunch of flowers. There's no note. The flowers look like they've been picked. Xander leaps to the conclusion that Spike is seeking favors from Buffy, but Spike makes it clear to Xander this is not the case. I'm not sure why he cares what Xander or Willow think. But he does. He actually defends himself and says :"I liked the lady. She treated me nice. Always had a good cuppa for me. Never treated me like a freak. What you don't understand is she was the only one of you lot I could stand!"
Why does Spike fall for Buffy? Perhaps because he identifies with Buffy on some level. Like Buffy - Spike was the sole caretaker of a sick mother. With no father figure in evidence. And like Buffy, he loses his mother. "I have to get back to mother," he tells Dru. And later in Lies My Parents Told Me, we learn that's where they go, his intent is to make his mother like himself, to have her forever. (Which was what happened in The Vampire Lestate by Anne Rice, Lestate turned his ill mother into a vampire like himself and they wandered psuedo romantically about France for a brief bit, except here it goes awry and is not romantic). And in Forever, he decides to help Dawn bring Joyce back. Dawn assumes he's doing it to get in good with Buffy. But he makes a point of telling Dawn never to tell Buffy, indicating perhaps that he knows on some level it's a bad idea. Which makes his motivation somewhat confusing - is it really to aid Dawn or to aid himself? Perhaps on some level, Spike himself wants Joyce back for Spike. He misses Joyce. If she came back wrong - she could be his dark mother? It's clear from both Lover's Walk and Crush - that Spike got a long with Joyce. He even seemed to deal with her pretty well in Becoming. It's the difference between Spike and Angel - Spike and Rupert Giles spar and barely get along, Spike often jabs at Rupert, while Angel jabs at Joyce, never liked Joyce, when he becomes Angelus he literally threatens to kill her, and causes a rift between her and her daughter, albeit brief, yet Angel respects Rupert, as Angelus respects his knowledge enough to kidnap him for it and tortures him.
If Giles had died, I'm guessing Angel would have acted differently, as would have Spike.
Angel comforts Buffy. Spike sort of comforts Dawn, but differently. It's not comfort. It's more commisseration. Which may well be what happened at the end of Fool for Love with Buffy - comisseration. He like Tara, understands. And unlike Tara, but like Dawn, wants to change it. He wants Joyce back. He doesn't want her back completely wrong - so he helps Dawn find someone who can make sure she comes back okay, from Spike's pov.(Foreshadowing for S6, when they bring back Buffy and Spike leaps to the conclusion that she came back slightly wrong - explaining her sexual attraction to him, which she didn't act on before. That conclusion is somewhat explained by this episode and Lies My Parents Told Me. Forever is possibly also the reason Willow makes sure Spike, Giles, and Dawn have no clue what she is up to in Bargaining.)
Spike's relationship with Joyce and Dawn, which extends outside of Buffy, and may well have influenced his feelings towards Buffy - is what the others don't understand. It is outside of their experience. Why would Spike care about Joyce and Dawn if it weren't about wanting Buffy? They don't know as much about Spike as Spike knows about them. They only know what is in the Watcher Diaries, which of course is somewhat limited in scope. As Spike told Buffy in Fool for Love - it's not about the moves. The Diaries only really talk about the "moves". Not the motivation.
In Forever - Spike acts more like Dawn's father in some respects or big brother, than Buffy's father. A sort of inept father or caretaker to Buffy's slightly more adept mother/provider. He takes on a sort of caretaker/protector role here...albeit an inept one, continuing the theme of inept fathers in the series. While Angel on the other hand takes on the caretaker role with Buffy, albeit an inept one - since he kisses her and makes it impossible for her to lean on him for longer than a few minutes. Angel notably does not take on the role of spouse or boyfriend - so much as father figure in the episode. The kiss is taboo and they break apart. While Spike leaves flowers (which is what the Body started with, flowers left by a guy for Joyce that Buffy comments on) and attempts to bring the mother back for both girls ( a horrific idea). He acts in the role of inept/monster spouse or boyfriend. While Angel acts the role of inept/monster father.
Dawn's spell of course goes horribly wrong and is broken before we can find out how wrong. It's a creepy episode - and reminds me a great deal of that classic horror story The Monkey's Paw. Where a couple wish on a monkey's paw for their dead son to come back, after he's been torn asunder in a factory accident. What shows up at their door is not their son or it is a mangled version of their son. They use their last wish to get rid of it.
However, the spell in Forever is in many ways a similar spell to the one that Willow uses to bring back Buffy and that she attempts to use again to bring back Tara. Tara tells Willow and Dawn this not something you want to attempt. It's playing with the natural order of things. But Willow doesn't seem to get that. Willow is not a trained witch like Tara, she is not into the religion, she does not practice wicca or abide by the guidelines, she is a practicioner of magic which is not the same thing. She's a witch not a wiccan.
2. Intervention and Tough Love - sacrifice and vengeance...love's at it's best and worst.
Up until Intervention, the scooby gang or Willow, Xander, Giles, Anya, Tara, and Buffy have only really seen one side of Spike. The other side pops up at times, but they aren't sure what to make of it - and after Season 4 and the events of Yoko Factor and Out of My Mind, may have decided to take it with a grain of salt. They've decided much as they did with Angel, to their considerable chagrin - that what they see is what they get - ie, they are judging the book by its cover. Not a good idea. Angel - was the demon with the Angel's face. Angelus is merely the latin for the same name. They have no way of knowing that Angel is a but a puppet to fate - always seeking the approval of a higher authority, the father who dies at his own hand and still to this day manipulates his strings. He is not his own man. Spike, they cannot know, is a pavolian dog - seeking the approval of a mother, who died at his own hand. Switching coats and pushing a bell. The chip has over time brought out the man that resides alongside the demon. The man who informs the demon. Positive reinforcement has convinced him that if he helps Buffy - he is okay, if he hurts her - he feels pain. If he helps, she treats him like a man, if her hurts or makes unwanted advances - she treats him like a thing. If he is chivalrous and doesn't react to her sexually - she treats him with respect. And Spike wants to be loved, respected, needed. He craves human companionship. He craves female approval and adoration. It appears on the surface that he doesn't - but it is the opposite. Spike and Angel are not what they appear to be. No one in the series is.
This is the turning point in the series for Spike. After he gets captured, the actor changes how he is playing the role, it's a slight change, the makeup also changes. Spike looks different after this point. At least for a while. More unkept. Leaner. Hungrier. Strung out. And also subdued. Almost tentative. We see more and more of William bleeding through the cracks in his exterior, more and more of the nancy boy, the pratt, that he denies. It is in this episode that Buffy sees the man inside the monster.
In a scene with Xander...Spike tells Xander that he is not a monster. Xander befuddled by this odd statement. Replies: "Yes you are. Vampires are monsters. They make monster movies about them." Spike shrugs, "well you got me there." It's a funny scene but speaks volumes about the characters and how they perceive things. Spike doesn't think of himself as a monster any more. He wants to be treated like a man. Xander only sees the monster - the man from Xander's pov is a mirage. But Xander is admittedly confused. Also, I think Xander on some level identifies with Spike, which serves to confuse him further. Buffy tells Spike the truth when she visits him as the Bufbot and states in response to his question - "they repaired you?" She says - "They got confused." They are confused - by his actions. And she's visiting him in the guise of the toy, to get him to tell her the truth, knowing full well he wouldn't otherwise. (She's right, he probably wouldn't have. She'd have gotten bravado instead.)
In Intervention - Espenson pokes fun at gothic romance tropes or the bad-boy - Spike's programing of the Buffybot is right out of one of these novels or possibly a fanfic. It's a romantic fantasy. Complete with the bad dialogue. Not quite what one might expect. It's funny, yet also disturbing. Buffbot's put him at the center of her universe. But she doesn't appear to love him in his fantasy, so much as merely desire him and want him. She says she "loves" his sinister attraction. Spike has decided that the reason Buffy and Angel hit it off and not Buffy and Riley is because Angel is a monster and she liked the sinister monster. Remember Spike knows Angel better than Buffy does. He knew Angel for 20 years as Angelus, and for quite a bit longer as Angel. He was around when Angel got cursed and couldn't tell there was a difference. He knew Angel and Darla together. Buffy barely saw them together. As he states later in Beneath You - "Angel hid it well... he should have told me." From Spike's pov - Buffy must have a yen for vampires and monsters, otherwise why would she be with Angel? He does not know how Buffy saw or perceived Angel - he doesn't understand that. If she told him? He'd probably laugh and tell her she was a fool. Actually he has more or less. In Lover's Walk. So in Spike's fantasy - she wants him, desires him because he's dark and sinister. It never occurs to him that she'd fancy the man. Her reaction in Intervention takes him by surprise.
The critique is of romantic gothic fic - where the woman wants the bad boy, the demon and not the kind man. Demonstrating how silly this is, how unreal. While I'm tempted to say the buffbot is sexist. It really is not. If you look at the programming - sure she's programmed to want sex with him, but he pleasures her as well. We see him going down on her at one point (performing oral sex) then later she returns the favor. Also she tells Buffy - "yes, he's evil, but you should see him naked, I mean really". She's not like April. She isn't just about her boyfriend. Nor has she made her boyfriend perfect, he's evil - she tells people. He's given her a job, a calling, friends, family, desires outside of him. In the battle sequence, the Buffbot looks at Spike wounded in the elevator - goes to save him, then shifts course and is broken, risking her life to save Giles. In her memory banks - she's told how to feel about each of Buffy's friends. That's why they can't tell she's a robot. She looks at Anya and thinks, loves money, ex-demon, dates Xander. And Willow - is gay from 1999-onwards, witch, best friend, good at computers. It's detailed information that Spike provided and asked to be programmed into her. Spike clearly remembers it and pays attention, even if Warren didn't - he seems to have forgotten all of it by S6. So what Spike creates is more than a girlfriend, more than a sexbot, he creates a pleasant Buffy that will be with him and love him...but is also a slayer, slays vampires, and demons, and cares about her friends. He wants Buffy. Since he can't have her - he attempts to create a substitute. But the substitute he creates is not subservient. Spike doesn't create a slave or sexbot, he creates an equal or tries to. He creates a romantic fantasy right out of Harelquin Novel or Gothic paranormal romance.
Spike does not act predictably with Glory. Tortured for hours, possibly more than a day. Beaten, thrashed. Barely escapes with his life. Yet doesn't tell her a thing. It shocks Buffy and she kisses him. It is the first time that she truly kisses him under her own willpower. And it takes him by surprise. It's a counter to his romantic fantasy. Which she tells him is not real. When they actually engage in it in S6, she repeats this sentiment endlessly - this is not real. And she's right. It's not. Any more than her romance with Angel was real. What he did for her and Dawn, that was real.
In her vision quest - she revisits the desert landscape and the first slayer that she'd visited in an earlier dream in Restless. Except this time the first slayer speaks. She tells Buffy that she is full of love, so bright it is blinding, and she mustn't turn away from it, the pain, or stop forgiving, forgive - give, leads you to your gift - death is your gift. Which is a repeat of what Spike and Dracula told her. Spike said "death is your gift, you make it day after day with your hands". What he is talking about is mortality for vampires - who live forever and can't die. The gift of final release. Which part of Spike may well crave. The first slayer is also talking about it, about the balance. You must die to live. As other's have stated, in S5, Buffy kills herself to save herself. Dawn is her mortal self, the part of her filled with life and love.
At the end of Intervention - she follows the first slayers advice, she forgives Spike with a kiss and brings him into her group. By doing so, she changes the course of both his and her own destiny. As well as everyone else's. Because of her actions towards Spike - he eventually gets a soul, dies to live so to speak. She could have chosen to dust him. He may well have welcomed it. But she doesn't. She chooses to forgive him, to see the man inside not just the demon, and to let the man in.
This leads to Tough Love. Where the central focus is on Willow and Tara, as well as on Giles, Dawn, Buffy. Giles proves in this episode to be somewhat helpful - but as a torturer and interrogator. Giles, I've begun to realize during my rewatch is inept. He's always being knocked unconscious in the first four seasons. Cordy even makes the comment - it's a wonder you don't have brain damage by now. It might be Anya. Not sure which. In the fifth season - he doesn't do much - except come up with advice that more often than not isn't correct and causes harm. He enables Willow's dark magic - by keeping books on the topic accessible. Both Willow and Dawn are able to find them. The Watcher's Council warns him to hide the books, but he ignores them. Anya warns him not to sell certain items, but he purchases them anyway - enabling Willow and Glory at different points. And here, he tortures someone - no wonder Willow thinks it is a good idea. When Buffy asks Giles for help with Dawn or support, he gives her the wrong advice - tells her to put her foot down, refuses to help, and says she must do it alone. (Admitting that when he tried to discipline her, she just ignored him - because he never followed up on it. Something Joyce understandably calls him on. In fact Joyce rightfully tells Giles that she blames him for Buffy taking off at the end of S2, Joyce is right - it is partly Giles' fault.). I think this is intentional. I think we are supposed to see Giles as ineffective. It's too consistent and obvious for it be anything else. Another critique of the paternal world-view. Giles' guidance, if there's any, is not to kill everything and to understand people make horrible mistakes and forgive them. But even that advice gets cloudy at times.
Tough Love in some respects reminds me of Seeing Red and Passion, except it is more disturbing and creepier. It packs more of a wallop - because, Glory does it in broad daylight, with people around. And what she does to Tara is as Tara states, a fate worse than death. "A brain-sucker? At least vampires just kill you." And the place she puts Tara is the place Tara ran away from. The dirty small box in which Glory herself has been exiled to and barely escapes from time to time - where she feels dirty, and it's dark and small things are pinching and crawling inside her. Willow gets there - but just in time to see Glory do it and to see Glory leave. Too late to save Tara. And it happens after their fight. An arguement that struck a chord in me - and no not the lesbian bit - although that actually is played quite well, but the bit about not having these experiences, not being able to identify and feeling less than because of it. "I haven't had a parent die, I don't know what it's like ..." Willow's fears and insecurities scream out during this scene. And Willow reacts to Tara's injury exactly as Tara feared she might. This is the Willow that scares Tara. The Willow that scared OZ as well. The Willow who goes after magic to handle and/or hide her own inadequacies, her jealousy of Buffy - which also comes out in this episode. "You could do it!" She shouts at Buffy. "Why can't I?" Willow has been working hard since roughly Season 1 to become more like Buffy, her best friend. She has envied Buffy since she met her, and it is that envy that is eating away at Willow. It's an odd envy, because Buffy in a way probably envied Willow - envied that Willow did not have this enormous calling. Could be the normal girl.
And like Giles in Passion - Willow follows her mentor's lead, and darts after Glory and barely injures her, almost gets herself killed - like Giles did in Passion when he went after Angelus. Spike and Dawn manage to convince Buffy that Willow will do it, reminding her that it is what she'd do under similar circumstances. And like with Giles, Buffy rushes to the rescue. Except...
This final grab at black magic from Giles's shop - is probably the reason Willow begins to lose control later. Before this point, Willow needed Tara to do the complex spells still. Sure she was beyond Tara, but to do them took a lot out of her. Now, she can enter people's heads, and hold Glory in stasis with little effort. Her eyes turn pitch black when she uses this type of magic.
She has crossed a line. The magic she uses are curses, they twist things. And it is the third time she's accessed it. The first was in Becoming, the second...Something Blue - when D'Hoffryn wanted to make her a vengeance demon, and the third now - each spell is a vengeance spell. Each comes from vengeance, and each warps Willow a bit more than the last. Willow and Spike's arc's began more or less in Becoming - because of Angel and Buffy's actions, Spike moved in a direction counter to evil and Willow moved in a direction towards it. Spike was/is Angel/Angelus' best friend, his brother, and Willow was/is Buffy's best friend.
Giles later states in Flooded after she did the Bargaining Spell that Willow opened a door she might not be able to close when she brought Buffy back. But what Giles has failed to see is they are long long past that point already - she opened that door way back in S2, and has opened it at least twice since, the third time was the charm. After that point, all she needs is a nudge from Amy and when she gets more black magic, the magic begins to control her and the addiction storyline takes off. What a lot of people do not understand about substance abuse, mostly because we have a tendency to base our understanding of things on our own rather limited experience/perspective of them (a huge flaw in our reasoning by the way, we do not as much as we like to think it live in a one size fits all world) - is more often than not the substance in of itself is not evil. There is nothing wrong with alcohol for example - in some people it can be helpful, same with marijuana or caffeine, while in others it is poison. Sure some substances are poison no matter what - ie. tobacco and nicotine. But most aren't. The abuse happens when the person begins to let the substance control them. They crave it. It takes them over. Willow after Tough Love, lets the magic take over. It becomes who she is. She doesn't like herself without the magic. She has begun to define herself with it. She choses to be the darkwitch over the nerdy geek.
The magic is also to a degree a metaphor for female power - for earth. Like guns or swords or the fist represent male power. The magic uncontrolled is chaotic, destructive, devouring, swallows you whole. The negative aspect of the mother. Controlled - it is kind, comforting, beautiful, and filled with love. We see it with Glory and Ben - healer/monster. Chaos/Order. But chaos isn't always bad and order isn't always good. Tara's magic is shown to be beautiful - Willow's tempered by Tara's is equally beautiful. Without Tara, Willow loses control and becomes vengeful, greedy, devouring. Tara = good mother, Willow =negative mother.
The duality is evident. And it is a theme established early on - in The Replacement, where Xander realizes that both Suave Xander and ButtMonkey Xander are Xander. Without both, Xander will die. As Spike programs the Buffbot in Intervention - Willow is many things, not just one. She's nerd willow and magic willow and gay willow and best friend willow... Tara sees that. Willow hasn't figured it out yet.
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Date: 2009-07-13 04:26 pm (UTC)Good point.
In The Gift - just before they go out to confront Glory and save Dawn, Tara turns to Giles, points at him and states: "You're a killer!" Then she mutters, "when all is said and done...that's what you are." And wanders out.
In this season - people aren't what they appear to be.
Buffy - in the final episode, is seen as harsh, cold the slayer - she's robot Buffy, and long-haired Buffy,
Buffy in black and Buffy in white. The Buffy in white doesn't kill Glory or Ben, nor does she kill Dawn - which is what everyone expects. She kills the slayer to save the human.
Giles - appears to be the mild-mannered librarian, ethical, good - yet he is willing to kill Dawn and/or anyone to save the world. He admits it. It is the part hidden. Giles is Machiavellian in his philosophy - the ends justify the means. It's how he has been taught.
Use any weapon at your disposal, regardless of the cost. (A cost that he ends up paying for in latter seasons in regards to Willow especially. The fact that Willow is his favorite...makes that cost possibly all the more painful and karmic.)
Willow - nerdy, soft, happy, couldn't hurt a fly Willow vs. Sadistic, Vengeful, Wrathful, powerful Willow. We see the first glimspe in Dopplegangland.
They think - nah that's not you. But Angel almost trips and tells them, actually the vampire is you, it's your darkest impulses let loose.
I was watching part of the Season 5 Overview last night after the Gift, and the writers were commenting on how one of the major themes they'd been playing with during the series was "power". How we handle power. Responsibility for power. How it corrupts. And those darker impulses inside us. Buffy has those impulses, that dark side, which she can either embrace or learn how to live with. Willow is much the same way - she has those darker impulses as well.
In the comics - Giles warns Buffy that she could lose Willow again. Buffy says - she knows. That is what she fears. All this magic. I know I'm enabling and making her worse. I'm afraid what I'm asking her to do will in the end destroy her, that I'm going to be the one to kill her - like I did in the future. But - Giles is not blameless here - he has to a degree pushed Buffy and Willow and Xander down this path. They were his students after all.